Tainted
by wild-stdreams
Summary: The inhabitants of the New York Institute weren't prepared for the chain of events set in motion by Clary Fray barrelling her way straight into their lives. When rumours of Valentine's return surface, Anya Cartwright realises that this might just be more than they can handle - but Anya's never run from a challenge.
1. Chapter 1

New York City, the city that never sleeps. I fell in love with it at the age of eight when we came to visit for the first time, running around Central Park and tugging on my little brother's hand as he complained that he didn't want to run anymore. I remember letting go of it and sprinting for as long as I could manage, collapsing on the grass in a breathless heap as I began to laugh, staring up at the autumnal leaves above me. There was something about the electricity in the air here that just made me feel alive and at home all at the same time. At eight, I had no idea that by the time I was thirteen I would be moving to my favourite city on Earth.

My phone buzzed, catching my attention as I paced down the streets of Brooklyn absent-mindedly. Everyone always knows that if they can't find me in the weapons room training that I'm lost to the city, wandering around to wherever my feet will take me.

"Meet you in 15? S x"

I couldn't even stop the smile that stretched itself over my features as I read his message. I was becoming one of those girls Izzy always laughs at, foolishly falling head over heels in love with a boy that surely is only bound to break my heart. " _The first one to fall is the first one to get hurt"_ she once told me, and Izzy tends to know her stuff when it comes to boys. And then there's Jace with his whole _"to be loved is to be destroyed"_ spiel that he doesn't seem to ever get tired of giving me when he catches me looking at some good looking male in Pandemonium or wherever else we might be.

But honestly, I've stopped looking since I met Seb.

I turned around, and headed to our favourite spot. A small coffee shop not far from the little bookshop where we met. I'd stumbled upon it when I was on another of my jaunts and had thought it was too pretty not too at least have a look inside, and I've been thanking Raziel for almost two months now that I had the inclination to check it out - but it was hard to pull me away from books anyway. A child of the Nephilim can't always rely on being good with a seraph blade, being smart helps more than I know Jace would care to admit.

I sat down at 'our' table - okay, it's making even me feel sick how cliched I've become - and ordered a coffee while I waited, it had been ten minutes since his text. When the little bell rang as the door opened my heart jumped in my chest as a flash of platinum blond hair caught my eye and forced that smile back onto my face.

"Hello you," He purred at me as he sat down opposite me and smiled that beautifully crooked grin as he reached one of his graceful hands across the table and curled it around my own, his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand.

"Good afternoon Seb," I faltered for eloquent words around him, his presence making me lose all sense of the world around me. It took me a moment to shake the haze that fell over me whenever he entered the room, but then I let the smile slip away and took a sip of my coffee whilst he waived over a waitress and ordered himself a tea.

I don't know all that much about Seb to say that he makes me feel this strongly. He's a Shadowhunter but he's asked me not to mention his name to anyone, but all I could tell anyone if I wanted to is that his name is Sebastian, he's nineteen and he makes me feel like someone has set me on fire in the most blissful way possible. His eyes are so dark they're almost black, he's tall and slender but by the Angel, beneath that shirt is a work of sculpted art. He's witty and charming, he is intensely intelligent and he's attentive. He has sat up in the middle of the night on the phone listening to me vent my emotions to him after a huge fight with Jace - more than once. Every part of me thinks he's a perfect angel - and that's why I don't trust him. But I also don't pay much attention to that nagging voice in the back of my mind, I carry on seeing him anyway because how will I ever know why he wants to be kept a secret from my friends if I don't take a leap down the rabbit hole into Wonderland with Alice?

As I began the walk home towards the Institute it crossed my mind that I hadn't spoken to my brother for a few weeks now, and it was surely almost time for another horrendous trip 'home' to Chicago. Even as a child, I'd never really fit in with my family. Sure, I fit in perfectly with the Nephilim breed, as I was everything the Clave wanted in a warrior to add to their ranks. But the Cartwright family? I'd never really found my footing within the confines of that family dynamic. My little brother, Jon, was always the centre of attention because how on earth could that chubby little angel ever do any wrong when his older sister made enough trouble to last a lifetime for our mother, Laura.

At thirteen, I apparently took the last straw and yanked it as hard as I could from my mother's hand. I pushed Jon against the wall and told him not to move or I'd punch him so hard he'd wake up next week, placed an apple on top of his head and used him as target practice with my brand new crossbow. So that was it, good-bye to the Institute in Chicago, and I was shipped off to New York to go live with Maryse Lightwood, my mother's childhood best friend, and her family. It's been four and a half years now, and I'm almost eighteen. I'll probably choose to stay here, rather than go anywhere else, it's not like the New York Institute is bursting at the seams with inhabitants so it's not like they can tell me there's no room left here for me as a legal adult.

* * *

"Hey A," Jace. I looked up from the book I was pretending to be reading and flashed him a smile, now although I'm not quite parabatai level of friendship with Jace - Alec got claim to that title - we're not far off. Whilst Alec always tries to pull Jace away from danger, tutting and running after him to make sure he doesn't get killed _again,_ I'm the one running about two steps ahead of Jace, shouting back at him to hurry his ass up.

"You're not fooling anyone, since when did you enjoy the," Jace pulled the book from my hands and closed it to look at the spine, "… history of Ravener demons." He kinked an eyebrow at me and laughed, and at that I snatched the book back out of his hands with a scowl set across my features.  
"Since they tried to kill that stupid little mundane of yours." I bit back at him, setting the book back on the pile I had collected from the surrounding bookcases. I pulled my legs up so that my feet rest on the edge of the chair and circled my arms around my knees, I never am comfortable sitting on a chair like a normal person, preferring to curl myself up however I can.

Jace sat down opposite me and sighed, neither of his best friends have taken much of a shining to his current infatuation, and the frustration of that was starting to show on his face. He may not care what most people think of him, but I know he cares about what the Lightwood family and I think.

"What?" His silence was starting to creep me out, I could almost feel some heartfelt lecture coming on and I wanted to nip it in the bud before he even considers starting. "She's assured dead weight if you plan on making her part of the 'gang'. Sure, she's Nephilim in blood but she's been raised a mundane J." He was frowning at me, the anger radiating from him was almost palpable but he knew I was right. With training, Clary could be something extraordinary like the rest of us are, but eighteen years with no training? All she would do going to do is get one of us, or herself, hurt. Alec, Jace, Izzy and I have been fighting as a team ever since I arrived here four and a half years ago - we're an established dynamic, we work like a well oiled machine, effective, deadly. Distractions cause chaos.

"I suppose you're going to suggest that she didn't hold that demon off herself either, like Alec is so adamant?" He asked me bitterly, and I rolled my eyes instantly at the petty tone in his voice.

I shrugged at him, "Raveners are hardly a difficult kill, but you didn't find anyone else there so it must've been her that managed to hold it off until you got there." As irritating as it was to admit, there was only a minuscule chance that it wasn't Clary who killed that demon, and I wasn't about to wind him up further about it.

He sighed, and let it go. "Fancy trying your hand at beating me in a fight, surely the amount of training you've been doing must've made you unbeatable?" He asked with a smirk. "Oh wait, no, it's me who's reigning champion."

"I'll kick your ass, Jonathan Christopher Wayland."

* * *

A knock came at my door a few hours later, and it swung open a second later revealing the ever radiant Isabelle. "Shall we go see if the redhead's awake? See how she's doing?" She asked, leaning up against the doorframe with a small smile.

I considered it for a moment, trying to be comforting towards Clary. She was bringing a whole lot of trouble with her and she'd only been in our lives for a matter of days. It stung a little, that she was taking my title of trouble maker. I finally rolled my eyes and sighed as I got up from my bed and followed Izzy down to the infirmary where Clary had been left to recover from the demon venom.

Izzy sat down on the edge of her bed, whilst Clary appeared to be having some sort of bad dream, her head tossing from side to side whilst her expression seemed pained, or scared - I couldn't work out which it was. All of a sudden she gasped and sat up, her green eyes flying open just as her forehead connected with Izzy's.

"Ow." Izzy fluttered her eyes momentarily, eradicating the pain from the collision.

Clary blinked, and sat back a little, "wait, I don't know you guys."  
It was hard not to roll my eyes at how terrified this girl seemed of everything. But maybe it was my love of being thrown into the middle of chaos that made me so impatient towards her probably pretty regular mundane reaction to the events of the past few days.

"I'm Isabelle. This is Anya," She motioned her head towards me where I stood a little behind her, arms folded over myself. I've never been the overly friendly type, and I wasn't about to start now. "I've never seen Jace so curious about a mundane," Izzy offered her a dazzling smile, "Or distracted, and like you saw earlier - distractions are dangerous in our line of work." You couldn't tell unless you knew Izzy the way I did, because she was pulling off friendly like it was genuine - but there was a hint of a threat in what she said. Danger is a given, as a shadowhunter, but we don't exactly welcome added danger if we can avoid it.

Clary shook her head a little, and blinked back at Izzy. "I've no idea what you're talking about, who's Jace?"

I sighed loudly and took a step forward, "You really don't know much, do you?" This not-so-mundane mundane may have been ages with us all roughly, but by the Angel was she so far behind.

The look that Clary then cast towards me made me somewhat more interested as she narrowed her eyes a little, "All I know is some psychos took my mother, and now you _people_ have taken me."

"And by taken, I assume you mean saved your life." Izzy interjected, tilting her head a little to the side as she tried to gain Clary's trust.

The footfalls of Alec interrupted us as he traipsed into the infirmary with a face like thunder, something he'd been wearing since Jace first laid eyes on the redhead.

"Mundanes shouldn't even be here." He simply said, copying my stance with his arms folded over himself.

"Where is here, exactly?" Clary asked, looking around the infirmary with confusion all over her expression.

"She's not a mundane, Alec." Jace. I'd hardly ever seen something cause this much tension between Alec and Jace. Even with all of Jace's previous conquests of lust, Alec had barely ever batted an eyelid at them - but there was something different about this.

"And how do you know that?" Alec raised a thick dark eyebrow at Jace questioningly.

"Because the seraph blade lit up when she touched it," Jace moved from one foot to the other and sighed in exasperation, "Look, Isabelle, can you…" He gestured down at where she was sat, asking her to move without actually saying it. Izzy shook her head a little, perhaps at the way Jace and Alec were acting with each other or being asked to move in such a belittling manner, but either way she stood up and moved herself over to an armchair.  
Jace sat down where Izzy had been on the edge of Clary's bed, "I'm Jace Wayland." He said in a soft voice, a voice that he had never offered a virtual stranger like Clary before.

"I'm… uh," Clary began, before she was interrupted.

"Clary, Fray." I was growing tired of the fact that she couldn't figure out we weren't the ones in the dark here, we knew exactly who she was - we'd done our research.  
"Yeah, we know who you are." Jace added, flashing me a look of annoyance at the tone I'd given her name.

"Am I the only one who finds this unusual?" Alec asked loudly, unfolding his arms and raising one hand palm up to make his point, his expression growing more irritated with every passing second.

"You find everything unusual, Alec." He snipped back at his parabatai.

"I have to report this to the Clave." Alec then stated, crossing his arms back over his chest. Typical Alec - follower of every single rule in place.  
"You know what, dial it down a notch." Jace rolled his eyes as Izzy almost burst out laughing.

"My brother doesn't have a dial. I love you Alec, but you have a switch that's always on." She reminded us with a smile.

"I love you too but this is just-"

"Hey, you know what, gimme a minute," Jace was asking us to leave. Taking on the role of leader of our little pack as always, it was a gimmick that was starting to grow old. Being the 'greatest shadowhunter of our age' was certainly going to his head - and I say that as someone who loves him endlessly.

Alec opened his mouth to object but before he could, Jace looked at him with pleading eyes, "Here's a word you never hear me say, please." I paced over to Alec's side, getting ready to drag him out of the room if I had to, before things got too heated and the pair of them ended up rolling around on the floor trying to strangle each other.

"What is with him," Alec began as Izzy stood from her chair, "really no, what is with him?" He asked again as Izzy rolled her dark eyes at him.  
"Walk with me brother, let Anya and I explain it to you." She took his arm as the three of us left the infirmary, leaving Jace to try and get any information he could from Clary.

"We don't know this girl, there's no such thing as new shadowhunters."

"There is now, Alec." I said with a shrug, what was there to say? Clary quite clearly had shadowhunter blood, she'd survived the iratze rune and the seraph blade had responded to her.

"You don't find that strange?" Alec asked Izzy and I, turning to look at us.

"What I find strange is that you're so upset. Maybe you're upset by the way Jace is _looking_ at her." Izzy looked up at her older brother with an expression that only radiated her love for her big brother, despite his terrible temper. "You know, you should be happy that Jace is interested in someone other than himself."  
"This is very true, it might actually tear him away from the mirror once in a while." I added, somewhat sarcastically.

"Maybe I'm pissed that she ruined the mission, we never find out who was buying the blood and that was our one job."

I was beginning to feel as though if I rolled my eyes one more time they'd roll right out of my head. Would the day ever come when Alec could just let go of his obsession with doing everything the way the Clave wanted us to. I kinked one eyebrow at him and sighed, "Well I guess we have a new mission now Alec, finding out who is after this untrained nephilim. She's hardly much of a threat to anyone, but she's clearly interesting to _someone_."

* * *

A/N: Hello lovelies! My first attempt at a TMI/Shadowhunters fic and I'm surprised it's taken me this long to even start one to be honest as TMI is life. But yeah, I'll probably use parts of the books as well as the TV show and movie as I love all three. But I hope you like Anya! As usual, I'd love your reviews and head over to my tumblr wild-stdreams for any edits etc xo


	2. Chapter 2

I was stood near the entrance to the Institute, leant up against the wall as I flicked around on the tablet in my hands, checking up on leads we had on who it was that had been killing downworlders and draining them of blood when Clary and Jace breezed by me.

"I saw something behind your friend," Jace said, illuminating his seraph blade at his side

"You're not going to kill Simon are you?" Clary asked, sounding as though she genuinely thought Jace might kill a mundane for no reason other than dislike. They'd caught my attention, and I placed the tablet down on the desk nearest to me and jogged to catch up with them.

"What's going on?" I asked as Jace was speaking.

"Protect the humans, kill the demons, you'll get it eventually." He turned his head to me and I could feel the annoyance seeping from his pores, "The mundane has shown up here." I simply laughed as we pushed open the door of the Institute and stepped out into the night.

"So why can't Simon see you?" Clary asked us as we made our way over to the mundane.

To answer her, Jace lifted the corner of his black t-shirt, as I explained "That is a glamour rune, it makes us invisible to mundanes."

"It's a shame really, 'cause I'm denying them all this." Jace added, casting a glance down at himself. I couldn't stop my eyes from rolling so hard they almost rolled out of my head.

I had to stifle a laugh at the mundane's expression when he saw Clary who was wearing Izzy's leather dress.

"What do you have on? Clary, let me take you home." The mundane said, I recalled faintly that his name began with an S or something but I wouldn't have put all of my money on it.

Clary faltered at the mention of going home, "Uh, I don't think I have one anymore."

"Why? What do you mean?" He asked, handing her is hooded jumper which Clary obligingly put it on over the dress that didn't leave too much to the imagination. She started to try and explain when a voice shouted from behind us. Within the blink of an eye Jace and I had turned, seraph blades raised for attack.

"Clary Fairchild!" A man in a dark suit with dark hair and a seraph blade in hand bellowed at us, and I barely even noticed Jace move until he came up behind the man and wrapped his arm around his neck.

I could vaguely hear the mundane muttering in the background, completely clueless about what was going on beyond his vision.

"If you give us the girl I'll let you live." The man said, and all of a sudden his circle rune on his neck stood out to me, it only made sense that a member of the circle would turn up at the Institute to find Clary.

I laughed at him, "You're not really in a position to be making many rules fella." I said, and a second later his elbow connected with Jace's face and Jace lost his grip on the Circle member. He charged towards me and our seraph blades connected, and so did our eyes as he growled in a low voice at me.

"We'll never stop hunting her." I slashed at his leg with my seraph blade, causing him to cry out.

"This is for my father." Jace said, before stabbing him through the chest with his seraph blade, a second later the man dropped to the ground.

"Jace!" Clary squealed, shrugging off the mundane's jumper and running over to him. The mundane looked completely baffled, which certainly helped make me feel a little more light-hearted following coming face to face with a member of the Circle.

"Is he dead?" Clary asked, pointing to the body of the man.

"Nah, he's just taking a lil nap." I quipped, only to be met with a scowl from Jace for joking around with the precious little redhead.

"Is who dead?" The mundane asked, frowning. He spoke to soon though, as the glamour faded and the body appeared to him.

"What the?"

"Could you de-glamourise or whatever so that my best friend doesn't think I'm losing my mind?" Clary asked us in an exasperated tone before she took a couple of steps towards the mundane to try and comfort him.

Jace and I exchanged a look before we both passed our steles over the invisibility rune, de-activating it.

The mundane blinked at us a few times, "Um," he swallowed loudly, "What is happening?"

"We don't have that luxury right now kid, everyone back inside." Jace said, his tone starting to show the very little patience he had left with this mundane.

"Clary who are these two? Your meth dealers?" Clary disregarded the absurd accusation, and turned her attention back to the dead body.

"I've seen him before at the police station." She informed us, and it hadn't really occurred to me before that the Circle members would've found her so quickly, chances are they'd been tailing her for a while now.

"He's a member of the circle, Clary, he's here for you."

"He's with the people that took my mother," she deduced, and clearly she'd learned more about the Circle than I had anticipated. Jace had obviously taken his duties of protecting her to a different level if he'd started telling her about the Circle, given that it is forbidden to talk about it.

"Indeed he is, but he wasn't here to just have a quick chat, Clary. He was here to capture you, and probably kill you once he was done getting information." I said, not even bothering to meet Jace's annoyed gaze as he tried his hardest to catch my attention without having to actually tell me to stop being such a bitch.

"There's a dead body there we have to call Luke," the mundane started muttering worriedly. Clearly seeing his first dead body was proving to be a bit of a traumatic experience. _Mundanes,_ I thought to myself as I might as well have rolled my eyes were I not having an inward conversation with myself about how ridiculous they were. I would make sure to go and laugh with Alec about them later.

"We can't trust Luke, Simon, we can't." Honestly I was starting to tune out, I mean it's one thing not being used to seeing a dead body but if Jace and I were going to have to fight off another Circle member I was going to kick the pair of them in the shins for wasting time quibbling about the dead fella on the floor.

"Clary, I need to keep you safe. I promise you, I am going to help you find your mother but you're one of us, you're a shadowhunter."

"Oh by the Angel, Jace can you hurry up? You carry the guy and I'll carry Clary, but can we just get inside?" I crossed my arms over myself and frowned in irritation.

"What are you talking about? Clary, you don't know this guy alright, come with me I can get us help."

"Mundie, we are the fucking help." I growled, placing the palm of my hand on my forehead, trying to keep calm at how much time we were wasting and how irritating Jace's gooey-eyed gaze at Clary was getting.

Quite comically, Clary was stood between the two of them, Jace and the mundie - like she was trying to choose her fate.

"Clary, please." Jace pleaded, with the most kind tone of voice I think I'd ever heard him achieve.

"Clary come on, Clary, come on, we gotta go." Simon said, taking a step backwards away from the Institute.

With a sigh, Clary took hold of his hand, "Simon, I think Jace can help us."

Finally, Jace turned around towards me and we started to head in to the Institute. "Finally." I grumbled at him, and he simply admitted a low tut at me.

"How do you know Mick Jagger and Emo girl are even gonna try?" Simon asked Clary in a voice he thought was quiet, but I didn't even need any kind of rune to hear it.

"Hey, watch it buddy. I could chop a limb off you before you can call me that again." I gave him a light shove, and narrowed my eyes at him. His eyes widened in fear and it was enough to make my expression soften as I chuckled. Out of him and his little ginger friend, he was the one I was finding easier to tolerate.

Under it's glamours, the Institute looks pretty destitute and not somewhere that a mundie would probably willingly walk into and so when Simon cast a worried look at Clary, I smiled at him in the most encouraging way I could muster. "Just wait." I said, as Jace rolled his eyes at Simon's expression and pulled out his stele and began drawing a rune on his forearm.

"I know, trust me." Clary reassured him, clearly thinking that he wasn't going to listen to anything I said and find me trustworthy just yet.

"He's like… burning himself."

Jace grabbed hold of Simon's hand, the reluctance written all over his face and it was met with a similar sort of reaction from Simon.

"Buddy, what's going on man? I'm not your type man, I don't even-" His protests were cut off as the Institute began to reveal itself to him. The dank and dingy hallways faded away into a warm golden light that glowed from the hallway, leading into the hub of the Institute that always seemed to have a blue hue to it from the many computer screens and monitors. Advanced technology that gained some of its power from angelic runes that were far surpassing anything the humans had, despite the fact that we had definitely stolen some of our ideas from human inventors no doubt. Other Shadowhunters milled around, pressing buttons on screens and going about their daily business of dealing with the war against demons that had been plaguing our species for countless years.

"Where are we? What the hell, Clary, is there a war going on that I don't know about?" Simon asked, turning to look at Clary.

"There is now," Jace answered for her before she could open her mouth, and he motioned his head towards me as he walked off and I didn't even think about following, just simply did.

"You coming?" Jace called behind him, and I spotted Alec and Izzy sat off to my right at a set of monitors and plodded over to them, pulling myself onto the desk and flashing them both a grin.

"Where have you two been?" Alec asked, his face always seemed to be in a light frown at all times and it was pretty off-putting to everyone who met him for the first time, but it was precisely what made me love him so quickly because he was almost as bitter as I was about everything in the world, ever.

Alec didn't even need me to answer as he noticed Simon waltzing into the room behind Clary, wide-eyed and completely taken aback by the sight before him.

I raised my eyebrows and smirked, "The redhead brings friends with her to sleepovers, didn't you know?"

"Hey at least he's kinda cute." Izzy added, craning her neck out so that she could look past me to get a better look at Simon and I fake wretched to show my disgust. "What? Geeks are cute too."

Alec grumbled, irritated by the way Jace was starting to disregard every single rule the Clave had set out since before time began or whatever. Sometimes I wondered how those two ever came to love each other enough to become parabatai they might as well have been polar opposites, maybe that was the reason.

Mr Rule-Keeper marched off to the screen where Jace had brought up the security footage of outside the doorway, where the NYPD had now turned up. Nothing to be worried about, the NYPD must've had every single officer on their squad turn up at our door at one point or another by now.

"What is going on, why is there a mundane in the Institute?"

Jace sighed, looking at Simon with disdain, "A circle member followed him, to get to Clary."

"A Circle rune just like the guys that took my mother." Clary clarified for us.

"What exactly is a circle member and why are they trying to kill us?" Simon asked, his words becoming faster and closer strung together the more worried he was getting with all this new information being thrown straight in his face.

"All we know is, a long time ago the Circle led a revolt a lot of shadowhunters got killed," Jace took a deep breath, steadying himself emotionally, "including my father."

"And since the revolt we've been forbidden to even hear abut the Circle." Alec then added, taking the heat off the fact that Jace's father had been killed in the revolt. All of us had grown to learn that talking to Jace about his father was just a disaster waiting to happen.

"But how's that even possible i-it's your history?" Clary really had so much to learn about what it was to be a shadowhunter, this girl was in way over her head.

Jace folded his arms over his chest and snorted as he cast a glance to a smirking Alec, "Says the girl who didn't even know she was a shadowhunter."

"Yeah, yeah you're right and now the only person who knows the truth is missing so I don't care about your rules or whats forbidden I'm - there's gotta be someone out there who can tell us why they took my mother."

"Big words from such a small girl." I said as I raised my eyebrows, you had to give it to the girl she had a lot of fire for someone so tiny and seemingly insignificant in strength.

"There is, you coming?" Jace asked, and didn't even wait for a reply as he headed off in the direction of the training room. Followed by both Clary and Simon.

"No no no, not you." He said, holding a hand out toward Simon's chest to stop him in his tracks.

"Hey, we're a package deal."

Simon puffed out his chest a little and grinned that Clary had defended him, "Yeah," He said smugly.

"There are runes all over the training room floor that will kill your mundie boyfriend." Jace explained, raising his eyebrows at the pair of them.

Clary and Simon both stammered at the same time, obviously embarrassed by Jace referring to Simon as Clary's boyfriend. "He's not my…" / "we're not, I'm…"

Alec and I, stood side by side both looked at each other with raised eyebrows as we stifled our laughter, mine coming out as a loud snort that refused to be contained by the hand I had clapped over my mouth.

Alec's mouth stretched out in a grimace, before he mouthed the word "awkward" at me.

"We're, uh, just friends," Simon then explained, and Clary smiled at him as she spoke.

"Best friends." Which earned a wide grin from Simon in response. Sickening, truly sickening.

"Yeah, and I'm tough" Simon then added, as Jace folded his arms and raised one eyebrow at him, intrigued whilst the rest of us smirked at the mundie making such big claims. Simon slapped the back of his hand against Jace's arm "So bring on the runes." Hiding the pain well aside from having to shake his hand off a little, earning a snort in response from Jace, Simon then remembered to ask, "So what exactly are runes?"

Enter Izzy, who stepped forward and pulled her stele from her pocket, running it over the angelic rune on her forearm as she explained, "They give shadowhunters our demon fighting powers."

"So hot," Simon muttered under his breath and the look on Jace's face almost made me cry out with laughter. Jace might as well have bared his teeth at Simon, but opted for clearing his throat in an annoyed manner.

"Uh, the rune, I mean." Simon said, trying to dig himself out of the grave he was making for himself as Izzy began to laugh lightly at the pair of them.

"Don't worry Clary, I'll watch over the - best friend - in fact I was about to make breakfast."

Jace sucked in a breath and looked to Clary, "On second thought, the runes might be less lethal."

Izzy tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows at her adopted brother, "I'll pretend I didn't hear that." She warned, "Please excuse my brother's lack of manners, this is Alec." She said, pointing behind her to Alec, "And Anya, cause Raziel knows she won't have introduced herself either. And I'm Isabelle." She extended her hand out toward Simon and smiled prettily.

"Lewis, Simon, Simon Lewis." Simon stammered, shaking her hand rather than kissing it like Izzy had been angling for. "It's two first names… Am I still talking?" Izzy laughed, taking too much of liking to the mundie in my eyes, but Izzy found males from another species much more interesting than any of the Nephilim boys. I really couldn't blame her, most shadowhunter boys had the ego the size of the moon.

"See, best friend's safe and sound here." She reassured Clary with a smile.

"Jace, if anything happens to him."

"Come on Clary, what are we going to do, eat him?" I said, shaking my head at her inability to trust us as if saving her life several times already wasn't enough proof that we were on her side.

"Go on, I'll be fine, I think." Simon said with a shaky laugh, which was the only go-ahead Clary would actually listen to.

"Where are we going?" Clary asked impatiently.

"Training room," Jace said, and whilst Clary began up the few steps toward the training room, Jace hung back and smirked as he placed a hand on Simon's shoulder.

"Hey um, don't eat the food, dangerous." He raised his eyebrows quickly and almost laughed before he walked off, following Clary.

"Come on, Simon. Let's go get some breakfast." Izzy said, taking Simon's arm and leading him toward the kitchen, away from the runes of the training room floor. At that moment I turned and looked to Alec who was staring after Clary and Jace with a scowl set across his features.

"Turn that frown upside down, Alexander." I teased, jabbing into his side with my elbow.

His scowl soon turned my way as he looked down on me. I'm not exactly small at five eight, but Alec practically makes me look like a dwarf.

"Not funny Anya, look at all this trouble she's causing." He said, exasperated by the recent turn of events. "Not only is she not a real shadowhunter, she's bringing mundanes along for the ride like it's just some little adventure out into the woods to find fairies."  
I had to bite down on my lip to stop myself from chuckling at his irritability at the mere thought of Clary Fairchild, Fray, whatever.

"She is a _real_ shadowhunter Alec, she's just untrained. And you, my lovely almost-brother, are jealous." I said as I shuffled my feet a little to face Alec fully, looking up at him.

"I am not jealous, Anya."

I said nothing at first, simply shrugged and tilted my head to the side with a smug smile stretched over my features. "Of course you're not, Alec."

"Oh give over, like you're Clary's number one fan." His scowl relaxed a little though, but I could sense his desire to hold on to this annoyance for as long as possible. Sometimes I felt like bitterness fuelled Alec, not food.

"Hey, I just make fun of her to help me tolerate her presence, works a treat. I don't even think she's realised I'm doing it half of the time." I sat back on the desk, and Alec chose to sit in the chair, clicking absent-mindedly on the screen, watching surveillance footage from outside the Institute where the NYPD had since left our doorstep.

"We never got to the bottom of those demonic killings." He said with a sigh, and it was as though I could physically see his brain working.

"The Circle?" I mused, "It makes a lot of sense. Didn't Valentine experiment with demon blood and such?"

Alec frowned at me, "How do you know so much about the Circle and Valentine? It's forbidden to hear about or talk about."

"By the Angel, I have lived here for four years Alec, do you really not know me well enough?" I rolled my brown eyes at him and reached across the desk a little to press buttons on the monitor, bringing up a file I had found whilst snooping almost three years ago. It required a passcode, one that I had watched Robert Lightwood tapping onto his screen from across the room without him even noticing me watching him.

"Anya, what the hell?"

"Live a little, Alexander." I sighed in disdain at him, about ready to stitch "Mr Rule-Keeper" onto every t-shirt and shirt he owned so everyone would know.

I cleared my throat as the file opened, revealing page upon page of information that the Clave had on the Circle and what went on, around eighteen years ago. Alec's expression was incredulous, and he barely knew where to start.

"How long have you known about this?" He asked, turning to look at me with disbelief.

"Been sat on it for a while, wasn't really important until now."

I didn't have it in my heart to tell him the document I had come across in there, decreeing that his parents had been involved in the Circle. I had moved it to a secret file the moment I saw it, knowing that I could never show my friends this file without breaking their hearts if that document remained in full view. I felt awful for lying to Alec, he was practically family. But I knew him too well to know what that information would do to him.

"Wait, Clary's mother is named Jocelyn right?" Alec asked, flicking through the documents on the screen, scanning them carefully.

"Yeah, I think so, why?" I turned my attention to the page he had stopped on, a photo of a young redhead, next to a handsome young man and at the bottom, two names. Jocelyn Fairchild and Valentine Morgenstern.

"No way," I breathed, leaning closer to the screen. "She looks just like Clary, that has to be her mother."

"She was a member of the Circle, Anya." Alec stated simply, sitting back in his chair. We both looked at each other and I exhaled loudly, not knowing what to do with this information. The strange mystery as to why Clary's mother had been taken by the Circle was by no means something I completely understood, but it was starting to get a whole lot clearer. Whatever trouble Clary had brought into our lives had barely just begun.

* * *

 **A/N:** So, it's been a little while since I update this fic and here we are, I finally found some motivation! Reviews would be appreciated greatly, but I hope you enjoyed this lil chapter although it's mostly scenes from the show, but the next chapter shall be more, if not wholly off-screen Anya time xo


	3. Chapter 3

All the legends are true. Everything any mundane has heard as a 'fairy tale'? It's actually real history - and chances are the hero of that story that was made out to be some simple human? They were a shadowhunter, a child of the Nephilim. This is what the Nephilim children are taught from the moment they understand words. It's no wonder that the Downworlders hate us so much when we're brainwashed into thinking we're the be all and end all of the planet from the age of about three.

It was this thinking that created the Circle. This ingrained ego, telling us that we should rule the world that convinced Valentine Morgenstern that he had the divine right to wipe out the downworlders, that we shouldn't have peace with them but rather destroy them so that they couldn't challenge us to be the controllers of the shadow world.

I understand completely why he had followers, I've heard whispers throughout the years about the Circle despite it's status as forbidden information. I've always been good at finding things out, and I'm always reminded that I appear to have superhuman hearing, even for a Shadowhunter. It comes in handy though, when you're hidden behind a curtain listening in to your mother's conversations.

Laura Cartwright, my mother, runs the Chicago Institute. My father Gabriel plays a relatively important part there too, but the title of 'Head of Institute' falls onto my mother and I know that she feels like she's been born for that responsibility. My mother is a perfectionist, and she cannot stand anything going a way that she didn't plan for. Which is probably the sole reason she's never really taken to me as much as she had hoped. From the moment I could walk I caused all kinds of trouble for her. She'd dreamed of having a daughter, all pretty but fierce. It's what she got, sure, but I didn't have the discipline she had expected of me. Or rather, I didn't follow her rules. Never did, and never would. Luckily, precious Jon arrived three years later and took up the role of "Mummy's little angel" and slowly but surely as we both began to grow she let go of her expectations of me and let them fall onto Jon who was more than happy to follow her around like a perfect suck up.

Having a mother in a position of great importance always spurred me on to want something similar for myself, but something told me that I am too much of a wild card for the Clave to ever trust me. I couldn't blame them, I'm always caught hidden away listening to confidential conversations or rooting around through digital files on tablets and computers, especially the restricted ones. I'd been reading every guide I could find on hacking from the age of eleven, and I've gotten pretty good at it - but sometimes all it takes is waiting for someone to enter a password without realising you're stood close enough to see what they just typed.

In my four years living with the Lightwoods in New York I'd never really approached Hodge Starkweather about his involvement in the Circle. I already knew he had tailed Valentine around everywhere, awe-struck and naive. It made me feel for him, I knew what it was like to look up to someone so much that you'd believe anything they told you - only to realise when it was too late that maybe they weren't as perfect as you first thought.

Sometime around eight in the evening I finally left my room, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to relieve the ache from spending several hours surrounded by piles of books and a Skype date with Evie Calloway from all the way in Bejing. Before I said goodbye she'd made me promise to say hello to Hodge for her, and earned herself the mother of all eyerolls. Evie and I had been friends for as long as I could remember, our parents being friends and all. Ever since Clary's arrival she had been demanding information as often as possible, hating every second of missing out on watching Alec almost have a heart attack every time we broke another of the Clave's rules.

I was basically sleepwalking my way to the kitchen, in search of anything edible, paying not enough attention so that I almost smacked straight into Hodge as I walked through the doorway into the kitchen.

"By the Angel, Anya." He muttered, a little miffed at the near collision.

"Oh sorry Hodge." I blurted out at him instantaneously, offering an apologetic smile, "Too tired, need food, clumsy as heck - y'know?" Normally Hodge would be a relatively cheerful sort, but he simply responded with the briefest of smiles flashing across his handsome features. So I mentioned the one thing that always guaranteed a boost in his mood.

"Evie says hello," Sure enough, his smile was much more genuine then.

"You spoke to her today?" He asked, suddenly forgetting all about the fact that I almost ran straight into him and whatever else had been bothering him.

I nodded, heading over to the fridge where I flung open the door and studied the contents. Some strange concoction that Izzy had knocked up and called a pasta salad, which I wrinkled my nose at the moment I saw the sticky label with her name written on it in elegant loopy handwriting. I sighed, realising there wasn't much that seemed actually edible in that fridge and closed the door in defeat.  
"Did she have anything interesting to say for herself?" Hodge asked, trying his hardest not to seem overly eager to hear about what Evie had been up to recently. The last time she visited New York it was almost unbearable watching them cast what they thought were completely unnoticed longing looks at each other.

"Oh you know, same shit, different day." I said, making a flippant hand gesture as I headed over to the cabinet Alec liked to hide packets of chips in, thinking that no-one knew about his stash. "Think she was much more interested in listening to me harp on about Clary, but I'm sure if you gave her a call she'd love to tell you all about life in the Bejing Institute." I looked up then, to watch his face turn a nice crimson colour.

Spluttering a little, Hodge started laughing in an attempt to brush off my implication. I rejoiced when I found a packet of chips, ripping them open in delight knowing that I'd pay for it later when Alec discovered they were missing. Luckily, it seemed like Hodge figured that all of the joy written across my face was from my snack discovery, not at the fact that I found his crush on Evie all too amusing.

I pulled myself up onto the counter top and started eating, and Hodge stuck around for a while which I found rather surprising. "So, how are you finding all of these questions unanswered in the form of a redhead?" He asked me and I shrugged lightly, I'd never been the kind of girl to run from any kind of challenge, regardless of whether or not I found her a little irritating.

"It's our job to protect her, and help her find her mother. What is there to feel about it? It's just another mission, and the fact that it's one we found all on our own without it being assigned to us by the Clave? Sign me the fuck up." Hodge started to shake his head as he laughed, it was no secret that I'd never been a fan of the Clave's ways, and I wasn't ever quiet about it. It's played such a huge part in my strained relationship with my mother, after all.

"It's looking more and more dangerous Anya, this girl is the daughter of Jocelyn Fairchild. A member of the Circle." Hodge said then, and just as he finished talking he started to crumple as the Circle rune on his neck began to burn.

I held a hand up to tell him not to say anything else that might set off his rune. "I'm pretty sure I know more than you think I do, Hodge. Don't hurt yourself further than you already have today talking to Clary and Jace."

He frowned at me a little, tilting his head to the side, "What do you know?"

I began to smirk then, stuffing more chips into my mouth, keeping shtum and tapping the side of my nose with a finger as I chewed. "A good detective never reveals their sources," I said once I had swallowed the chips.

"You're more trouble than you look, Anya Cartwright." Hodge said, a little scolding. Not that it was anything I hadn't heard and totally disregarded before, though.

"Goodnight, Hodge." I said, slipping off the kitchen counter and heading out into the corridor that would lead me back to my bedroom.

* * *

I woke a few hours later, with not nearly enough sleep for my liking and before I'm even out of my bed I've dragged an awareness rune across my skin with my stele in an attempt to shake the tiredness that was plaguing me.

Typically a child of the Nephilim, I pulled out only black items of clothing and dressed as the rune began to awaken my body and mind. By the time I stepped out of my bedroom I felt like I'd just awoken from the most refreshing of sleeps, despite only actually managing to catch a few hours. I stopped by the kitchen, grabbing an apple for breakfast on my way to Isabelle's room. I've lived here and known Izzy long enough now that I don't ever bother to knock, and so I headed straight into her room, finding her already dressed and made up beautifully, lounging across her bed with a magazine open in front of her.

"The mundanes really are fascinating," She said without looking up to see who it was that had just entered her room - I swear she has a sixth sense for detecting who is around her.

"Fascinating how?" I asked, flopping down onto her bed next to her.

"Well look at this, a whole publication just to talk about who these 'star' mundanes are dating!" She showed me the magazine and I wrinkled my nose in distaste at it.

"Who cares about that kind of trash?" I asked, completely puzzled as to why anyone would spend their money on some glossy pages about somebody else's dating life. "I'd much rather hear about who holds the record for most number of demons killed or who's the unbeaten crossbow champion, also known as one Anya Grace Cartwright, legend among the Nephilim." Izzy looked at me then, kinking one dark eyebrow with a smirk playing about her red lips.

A knock came at Izzy's door, both of our heads turning to see who it was as the door pushed open a little and a head of red hair appeared. "Hey, um, Jace sent me here to borrow some clothes?"

"Oh sure, come in!" Izzy responded, jumping up from the bed with far too much enthusiasm. I sensed her excitement at the prospect of a make-over.

"You might have been wiser asking for a rummage through my wardrobe," I said, looking up from the magazine that I'd returned my attention to briefly and in an instant, Clary looked worried just as Izzy whipped her head around to glare at me jokingly.

"Excuse me, your wardrobe doesn't even come close to measuring up to mine." She said, throwing open the doors of her wardrobe to begin searching through for something that Izzy felt was what Clary _should_ have been wearing.

"I'm sure Izzy will find something that will suit me…" Clary said, trying her hardest to sound like she believed the words coming out of her mouth and I started laughing.

Within mere minutes, Izzy was pulling out all kinds of short skirts and tops with plunging necklines. I put down my Codex and stood up, taking things out of her hand and shoving them back on the rail as soon as she pulled out something that only Isabelle Lightwood could pull off with ever the enthusiastic grin on her red lips.

"For the thousandth time Isabelle, no." I finally said, almost fifteen minutes later and bumped my hip against hers to push her out of the way. I found a simple washed-out looking black tank top and a pair of black jeans and handed them to Clary. "Here, it's the most normal piece of clothing that she owns." Clary thanked me quietly and headed off behind the elegantly decorated changing screen in the corner of the room to change.

"So your friend Simon, he's kind of nerd-hot, isn't he?" Izzy said, leaning back comfortably on her bed. I scrunched my nose up automatically at the thought of the mundane in any other way than just some tag-along to provide occasional entertainment. He wasn't hard on the eyes, but not my type.

"Um, I've never really thought about him like that." Clary said a moment later as she stepped out from behind the screen, dressed in Izzy's clothes.

"Isabelle is very liberal with her attraction to others - girl isn't limited to a 'type' like some of us are." I told Clary with a smile. Izzy's ability to radiate sexual energy was something that I'd always admired, it was impossible not to find her enthralling, even just platonically.

"This is the least revealing thing you have?" Clary asked, looking at herself in the mirror critically.

Izzy laughed quietly, "What? All the naughty bits are covered." She paused to examine Clary in the mirror, "A little too much in my opinion." Clary sighed softly.

"Where's Simon?" She asked, and Izzy and I both let our expressions fall blank as though we had no idea who she was talking about.

"Pardon?" I asked, knitting my eyebrows together in a confused manner. When Clary looked like she was starting to panic we both started chuckling.

"Kidding!" Izzy announced, "He's in good hands with the boys."

"So, um, you and the boys are… what, like, family?" Clary asked awkwardly, turning around to look at us instead of the mirror. Izzy sat down on the bed next to me and we both started to smirk a little at her question.

"What you mean to ask is, are either of us dating Jace?" I corrected her, and her eyes widened a little realising that we'd seen right through her thinly veiled question.

Clary scoffed, still trying to hide her true intentions behind her question. "Why would I care?"

"Because you do." Izzy said with a smile, "Don't worry. In every way, he's like our brother. My parents took Jace in when he was ten, and Anya when she was thirteen. We trained together. Learned to fight side by side."

"We're a well oiled fighting family machine." I added with a grin.

Clary sighed, leaning up against the wall, "A few days ago, all I had to worry about was getting into art school." She paused, inhaling with the weight of the world on her shoulders, "And now…"

"And now you've discovered you're a badass part-angel Shadowhunter." I told her with a shrug.

"Is this the part where we give you the pep talk about harnessing your inner Shadowhunter and accepting your true destiny?" Izzy asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Was that the pep talk?" Clary asked with a light laugh.

Izzy shrugged, rolling her lips together, "Basically. Clary…" She sighed, "Remember, you were born to do this. No matter what has happened… this is who you are."

"Yeah, not exactly feeling that." Clary responded, looking down at the floor.

"You're gonna be bad-fuckin'-ass with some training, trust us. You've got the best possible people to teach you." I said, standing up from the bed and crossing the distance to where Clary stood, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. I'd been finding her somewhat vexing the past few days, sure, but there was no denying that she was one of us despite her mundie upbringing.

"You'll be feeling it in no time." Izzy added, standing up also.

"Okay, but now we just have to find Dot." Clary reminded us.

"And track down and kill the most dangerous rogue Shadowhunter in history before he kills us all." Izzy said with a sweet smile.

"You really know how to ruin a pep talk, don't you?" Clary said with a laugh.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, pulling it out at my side to glance at it without being too obvious.

" _It's been a while Anya, meet up soon? Miss you, S x"_

I felt a pang of guilt, it had been several days since I'd seen Seb, but I'd been too busy to even stop and think about anything other than the trouble unfolding in front of us.

"Come on, let's go find the boys." Izzy said, linking arms with Clary and leading her from the room, "Coming Anya?" She called back behind her and I shook my head a little to clear the guilty haze and smiled.

"Right behind you Iz." I said, waiting until they were out of the door to type a reply.

 _"Sorry, been super busy at the Institute. Will call you later, A x"_

* * *

In the weapons room, Izzy and I pulled open one of the weapon stores, and immediately Izzy started running her fingertips over our options longingly. Finding a long sword particularly tempting, until Jace slapped her hand away and shook his head at us. "Whoa, no, girls."

With her back to the training room entrance, Izzy rolled her eyes at Jace before she spoke, "Fifty bucks says he doesn't approve this mission." Izzy's Lightwood sixth sense in full tact, as a fraction of a second later my eyes fell onto the frame of one Alec Lightwood.

"I don't approve of this mission." Alec said as he entered the training room and I instantaneously started laughing, Alec is nothing if not true to his character. "I spoke with the Clave. They're sending Seelie scouts to search for Valentine, but they made it clear, the little girl does not leave the premises." He continued, and it appeared that Clary wasn't taking very kindly to her new nickname.

"Hey, my name is not "little girl", okay? I don't care what that Clave thing or you want, I'm going to find Dot." She said, her face scrunched up in a somewhat angry manner. The hilarity of Clary trying to seem scary was almost too much to handle, I had to roll my lips together not to laugh again. I could tell she meant it, but her temper wasn't enough to scare any of us.

"Alec, this warlock could have the answers we need. With Valentine's people out there searching for Clary, she's not safe outside alone." Jace tried to reason with Alec, but why he thought he could change Alec's mind about this was beyond me. Jace seemed to be the only one not realising that Alec was certainly the least fond of Clary and the trouble she was bringing along with her.

"Jace has a point." Izzy said with a light shrug of her shoulders, and Alec almost looked incredulous.

"Et tu, Izzy?" He asked, eyebrows raised before a sigh followed and he gave in, just a fraction. "All right, since you have all the answers, where do you suggest we search?" He asked Clary.

Clary thought about it for a moment, tilting her head to the side a little, "We should start at Dot's apartment in Greenpoint, and there's this thrift store that she…" She broke off from her train of thought with a gasp, her fingers around the purple pendant around her neck. Her eyes widened as though she were seeing something somewhere else and the rest of us all frowned at her, confused.

"What's wrong? What is it?" Jace asked at the same time that I asked "What the hell?"

When Clary seemed to snap back to reality a second later she seemed just as confused as the rest of us. "I, um…" She exhaled, trying to make sense of whatever had just happened to her, "Weirdly, I think I know where Dot is."

"Absolutely fantastic news." I said without even thinking, unable to stop the tone that came along with it, earning myself a scowl from Jace.

"Great. I'll drive." Simon said with what I assume most people would find an adorable smile, he then faltered at the raised eyebrows from Alec and Jace. "What? Unless you have, like, a Shadowhunter-mobile or something." He chuckled a little at his own joke and when it wasn't met with anyone else's laughter he looked a little concerned. "You were kidding about the runes on the floor killing me... right?" He asked, looking to all of us for some sort of reassurance.

I raised my eyebrows and widened my eyes at him before I looked away as though I was trying to avoid giving him the bad news myself.

"Possibly." Said Jace, leaning in close to Simon before he gave him a pat on the shoulder as the rest of us turned and started heading off toward the front door of the Institute.

"Wait… am I gonna die?" Simon called after us before he scurried to catch up.

"There's always a chance." I answered, not dishonestly. He looked at me with a frown and exhaled loudly, as though he were gathering all the courage he could summon into his little mundane form. "Prepare yourself, mundie." I said with a grin.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hello lovelies, as usual - it's been a while. I am unproductive as heck... sorry! But thanks for reading, and please please if you have the time leave a review, this chapter's a little boring it's just sort of getting Anya into the dynamic and I know I said I'd go for mostly out of episode Anya scenes for this chapter but... It started with one? HA. Got so much of the episodes to get through! Head over to my tumblr wild-stdreams for edits etc xo


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